I am a new poster jumping into the hot topic after lurking for a while. I have enjoyed watching figure skating for a long time but have to thank two "recent" enablers - Youtube and the COP system - for heightening my enjoyment and deepening my enderstanding and appreciation of this beautiful sport. Easy access to information online, official or otherwise, can be very educational.
I am a fan of Patrick Chan as well as many other skaters. In fact, though I may have personal preferences of skating styles and abilities, I admire all elite skaters for their talents, dedication, and discipline way beyond almost all of us folks. Though I may perceive some of them as personalities I might not click with, I don't imagine any of these fine young people may be in any way near evil or as despicable as some online people habitually portray them to be. Yes, I am Canadian, so I'm familiar with Patrick Chan's TV personality. He comes across as wholesome, polite, and too honest and I haven't heard or read anything but positive about his character from anyone who has met and interacted with him. Amazingly, online I find some people who have never met Chan seemingly hating him so much that they wish for his demise and practise character assasination, making definitive statements about his mind and interpreting his every word and action the worst way possible. I believe some of the controversies about his scores are quite personal, not to offend those who genuinely discuss the sport and its scoring system.
Re. the COR results, I congratulate all the medalists, especially Verner, hoping this is the big boost he needed to excel after a very difficult year. I'm happy for Chan's Silver because if he had won with his falls, I would fear for his personal safety. As far as his scores are concerned, I believe he has earned them, including those from SC. There is little wiggle room in TES and he was appropriately penalized for his falls, so the debates have centred on the PCS. As PCS involve lower risk portions of the scoring, they are relatively constant for a skater, offering an advantage to those with high skating and performing skills. I believe PCS should be independent of the TES and the judges seem to be practising that this season. Leaving aside the arguements about how much technical element mistakes, especially falls, should affect the PCS, I see no particular evidence of judges favouring Chan just as I don't see how Canada is the Superpower that international judges kowtow to, even in Russia and even over an American. Two observations:
1: In SC, PCS did not affect Chan's placement, at least not in SP, and there is little dispute about his LP result. There was a score gap between the top 3 and "the rest" in both TES and PCS. Chan was at the bottom of the TES gap, barely sitting on top of the 5th placer and his top PCS lifted him into the middle of the gap in the total scores, staying firmly in 4th place. The PCS differences were small in SC. In fact, the placements pretty much followed the TES down the line, with only a couple of switches where it took several PCS places to move a skater up one place, Chan not being one of them. In contrast, at NHK, for example, the placements pretty much followed the PCS down the line.
2: On the other hand, in this GP series, Joubert, Takahashi, Nagasu, and Kostner have all faltered in technical elements but been given much higher PCS such that their placements were several places higher than TES-equivalent PCS would have left them. I am not faulting any of these skaters for scores received, Chan included. But the total inattention to these facts amidist the outrage ahout Chan's scores and the demand for revamping the system seem rather skewed and Chan-centric.
It's clear that many fans are judging the skaters with completely different criteria than the official ones judges are abiding. But these criteria are often vague, emotional, and reactionary, requiring rationalizations and reuslting in some proposals of rather convulated new scoring rules for the purpose of preventing winning with falls, especially by a Patrick Chan.
My opionion on why Chan falls so much lately: Firstly, I think this is transitional and typical of a skater upping his/her jump difficulties. And Chan has very ambitiously increased his difficulty level. Mentally it's never easy to attemp a quad, unless you're Plushenko or Kevin Reynolds, especially in debuting it in competitions. Even his 3As are now done out of steps in SP and in combo with 3T in his LP. In fact, all his jumps are preceded by fancy footwork. Secondly, not only does he never stalk his jumps, Chan never pops one. At least I've never seen him pop any jump. He takes high risks and is always committed to all his elements. In SC, he went after his 3A out of steps after the 4T fall. Then he went after the quad in the LP after the disheartening SP. He went about throwing himself around in the >30 second footwork sequence with a measly 2 point base value. So he sometimes falls in attacking the high risk jumps, but most of the times he earns credits with full rotations rather than forfeiting them with voluntary downgrades. If only clean programs are allowed to win, skaters would be avoiding risks, making figure skating less of a highly technical sport, though more appealing as an entertainment of mass appeal. Yes, I love show programs and worry about the well being of quad jumping skaters, but I also like figure skating to remain an Olympic sport.
As in any competition, rules are rules. Chan has played by the rules and earned his marks fair and square.
I had some touble trying to post this, so I apologize for probably being behind the current discussion.
Edited for spelling errors including the main subject's name.
if thats a reasoning Plushenko was never overscored as well,because why he was getting so high marks if he didnt deserve them?and I m the first who says he was overmarked many times. He just missed the fall 4 times rule 
If he cant skate clean with all this content it would be better to skate clean with less, they will not drop his pcs for that reason.
